Originalveröffentlichung in: Svenja Nagel, Joachim Friedrich Quack, Christian Witschel (Hg.), Entangled Worlds.

Religious Confluences between East and West in the Roman Empire. The Cults of Isis, Mithras and Jupiter
Dolichenus (Orientalische Religionen in der Antike 22), Tübingen 2017, S. 232-243

Martin Andreas Stadler

New Light on the Universality of Isis

(pVienna D. 6297+6329+10101)*

During the Hellenistic period in Egypt, an occasionally conflict-laden atmosphere,

highly complex interactions evolved between the indigenous Egyptian population
and the Greek-Macedonian immigrants. This evolution continued when new prob­
lems arose during the Roman period. It is one of the most exciting tasks of Egyptol­
ogists, Greek papyrologists and ancient historians to elucidate the various aspects of
life in such an environment between 300 BCE and 500 CE and to come closer to a
balanced look at the ancient reality. A vast field of interdisciplinary research has
developed for Egyptologists with a specialization in Demotic; they are particularly
qualified because they study chiefly those texts that are presumed, in many cases, to
have not been authored too long before the act of writing. Yet, I am well aware that
there are also much older texts that have been transcribed into the later Egyptian
Demotic script, or have even been translated from earlier stages of the Egyptian
language into Demotic. The Demotic sources provide us with a wealth of texts, ap­
parently newly composed at the time, that shed light on Graeco-Egyptian interrela­
tions and on the ways in which one culture influenced the other. This paper shall
focus on one of those sources, which will have some significance in regards to
questions of tradition. The source is the as-yet-unpublished hymn to an Egyptian
goddess, which is preserved on a papyrus in the Austrian National Library under the
inventory number D. 6297+6329+10101. I will usually refer to this as the ‘Vienna
Papyrus’ in order to not confuse the reader with such complicated inventory num­
bers.
On palaeographic grounds, it can be said that the scribe who wrote this text like­
ly dwelt in the Fayyum, most probably in Dime, during the first half of the first cen­
tury CE. The fragments that have survived can be arranged into 13 columns. This
arrangement has been inherited from Eva A. E. Reymond, who in the late 1970s to
early 1980s started working on the papyrus, but died before having finished an edi­
tion. She was only able to publish a short note on the text in an overview of the
Viennese Demotic literary papyri.* 1 I assume that 1 will be able to join some frag­
ments as my work on the manuscript progresses. Therefore, the present alignment is
anything but certain and will be subject to a thorough revision. In general, it can be
safely stated that pVienna D. 6297+6329+10101 is the relic of an originally quite

* Thanks are due to Dr. Christina Riggs (University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK) for correcting
my English.
1 Reymond, Demotic Literary Works, 42-60.
 New Light on the Universality of Isis 233

extensive scroll containing a lengthy praise to a goddess. Unfortunately, her name is

not preserved on any of the fragments.

Contents

The major part of the still extant text identifies this goddess with various other
Egyptian goddesses and enumerates her dominion over a series of Egyptian towns.
Such a parallelization of one goddess with others is so far only attested for Isis and
hence typical for her. Thus, in all probability the anonymous author presents us Isis
as a universal Egyptian deity. Reymond’s proposed identification as a panegyric to
Cleopatra Philopator, the famous Cleopatra VII, is rather unlikely, as 1 have not
found evidence that would indicate such an interpretation. Possibly, the numerous
references to the praised person as the mistress of the royal diadem and the manifes­
tation of the uraeus misled Reymond. However, Isis took over former titles of royal
women during the Ptolemaic period and could be seen as the divine protectress of
the regalia, much as Ptolemaic queens were perceived and presented as incarnations
of Isis.2
The first fragments appear to contain a mythological explanation for the goddess’
significance. The section is dominated by future III or circumstantial clauses with a
3rd person feminine singular pronoun as subject. Due to its poor state of preserva­
tion my understanding of this part is rather vague. The person to whom “she” refers
is connected somehow to Pa-Shai, i.e. the Agathodaimon, to the sun god Re and
also to pharaoh. It could describe the relationship of the goddess as uraeus of vari­
ous gods as well as of the pharaoh. A rather violent tone in the wording encourages
the reader to think of her as active against the gods’ and the king’s enemies. A bit
puzzling are the occurrences of the first person singular, because it is unclear who
the speaker might be.
With the next pieces we are on a firmer ground, as a female person is addressed
and equated with various other goddesses. These sentences follow the pattern: “You
are X”. The section starts with a series of 19 still extant identifications stating her
dominion by saying, “You are the mistress of ...” Unfortunately, the objects of her
governance are mostly lost. Following this, the goddess is equated with other Egyp­
tian goddesses, as mentioned above. The text reads for example: “You are the great
one at the brow who is in Khemmis”. The line continues with another identification
that, for the most part, has been destroyed. Another example reads: “You are the
great Astarte at the brow”. Again, the rest of the line is difficult to understand due
to its poor preservation. The next line continues the references to the serpents of the
crown: “You are the living uraeus who is in [...]”. The identifications are connected
to a series of Egyptian towns. It is likely, but not certain, that the equations of the
entire section were continued by an ancient formula found in the 3rd millennium
BCE Pyramid Texts, the so-called name formula. Such a formula is found on some

2 Otto, Gott und Mensch, 22 f.; Zabkar, Hymns, 42-45.133. See also: Stadler, Weiser und
Wesir, 153 f. Add to the references cited there Bresciani, Tempio, 80 f.
234 Martin Andreas Stadler

fragments of the Vienna Papyrus, yielding: “You are X who is in the town Y in this
your name of Z”. Usually; certain names were explained in a pseudo-etymological
manner by homophones. The exact nature here of those pseudo-etymologies is hard
to determine, because their first part is lost.
Altogether, the first pieces of the papyrus, which I have presented so far, appear
to contain a hymn to a goddess that is rather traditional and for which comparable
examples can be cited, although exact parallels are missing. Yet, on the possibly
10th surviving column a section is preserved that is unique so far in Egyptian Isis-
hymns. On the right-hand side each line starts with: “You are over ...” (ti&t hr...),
or: “You stand for ...” (tlM chc n...). It continues on the left-hand side with different
regions of the world. Through this, the hymn develops the picture of Isis as a global
and universal deity; Isis rules over the south, the north, the east and the west. In
between the various peoples, in the right column and on the left, the respective for­
eign, non-Egyptian names are attributed. Thus Isis is responsible for the Ionians, i.e.
in Egyptian terminology for the Greeks, and there she is called Demeter. Among the
Medes her name is AnahTta, among the Assyrians Nanaia and so on. The line con­
cerning the Persians poses a particular problem, where our goddess, presumably
Isis, corresponds to a certain Athyna (cthyn>) or Athynen (cthynri) or Lathyna
(Lcthyn>) or Lathynen (Lcthynn) as the chief goddess.3 We will postpone its discus­
sion for a moment.

Parallels

Altogether this calls our attention to a number of classical Greek sources that the-
matize and enumerate the manifold names of Isis. In the Metamorphoses written by
Apuleius the goddess appears to Lucius and presents herself in her different names
by which the various peoples call her.4 In the first hymn of Isidoros of Narmouthis,
dating to the 1st century BCE, the author also praises her as the multi-named and
identifies her with goddesses of other peoples in the eastern Mediterranean.5 Much
more similar to the Demotic Vienna Papyrus and far more elaborate is the Greek
P.Oxy. XI 1380: after describing the Isiac cult topography of Egypt it adds a list of
Isis’ names in the various areas of the ancient world.61 shall come back to the rela­
tionship between that text and the new Demotic source, which I am presenting here,
when I explore the question of influence in combination with the Athyna/Athynen/
Lathyna/Lathynen-problem. However, the Egyptian evidence shall be quickly re­
viewed first.

3 In an earlier article (Stadler, Hymnen, 160-162) I erroneously read cteynn or Lcteynn. How­
ever, the Demotic sign is clearly an h and not an e. I thank Friedhelm HOFFMANN and Joachim Frie­
drich Quack for bringing this to my attention.
4 Apul. Met. 11, 5. Griffiths, Apuleius, 76 f. 143—157.
5 Schulz, Warum Isis, 266; Totti, Ausgewahlte Texte, 76 f. See also Moyer, Isidorus, and his
contribution to the present volume (pp. 182-206).
6 Grenfell/Hunt, Oxyrhynchus Papyri XI, 190-220.
 New Light on the Universality ofIsis 235

In Egyptology, two Demotic texts have been proposed as the models of the
Greek Oxyrhynchus Hymn. The first is pTebtunis Tait 14 with its parallel pCarls-
berg 652 vs. The papyrus pCarlsberg 652 vs. is currently unpublished, but known to
scholars through announcements by Joachim Friedrich Quack.7 According to him,
pCarlsberg 652 vs. substantially extends the text as it is preserved on the small
fragment known as pTebtunis Tait 14. Never having seen the former myself, I can
only speak about the latter. Thus far, the text is solely analogous to the first part of
both the Oxyrhynchus version and the Demotic Vienna Papyrus. All three composi­
tions recount Isis as mistress of several Egyptian towns. Yet, we cannot say with
certainty whether the Tebtunis version also contained a similar section that present­
ed the goddess to the rest of the ancient world with the same qualities as the Ox­
yrhynchus and the Vienna papyri do. The only pertinent word which would have
linked Isis to the foreign goddess Anat in the Demotic pTebtunis Tait 14, and which
would thus show some analogy to the list of Isis as being manifest in foreign god­
desses in the Oxyrhynchus and Vienna papyri, proved to be a misreading of rnnty,
“prosperity”.8 Likewise, pHamburg 33 vs. is not - as originally thought - an invoca­
tion to Isis parallel to P.Oxy. XI 1380, but a list of female Egyptian deities and their
Egyptian cult centres.9 Due to its highly fragmentary state of preservation, it cannot
be safely said that each sentence commenced with an independent 2nd person singu­
lar feminine pronoun equating a female addressee with a series of goddesses. There­
fore, it is not certain that these goddesses were also identified with Isis as is gener­
ally assumed.10 11On the other hand, it is possible that a general introduction connect­
ed Isis with the goddesses in the following topographical list.
All the manuscripts that I have discussed so far do not exhibit direct word-by­
word parallels, but seem to be more or less similar in their basic plan or concept of
a polyonymous Egyptian Isis." This Egyptian polyonymity has been assumed as the
basis for a transposition to the entire known world. However, when we reduce the
parallelism in such a general manner, further Egyptian sources must be cited here,
chiefly hymn no. 7 from Philae (in Louis Zabkar’s numbering),12 hymns to Isis in
her temple at Assuan,13 and Ostrakon no. 10 in the archive of Hor.14 All are signifi­
cantly older: The Philae-hymn dates to the reign of Ptolemy II (thus to the first half
of the 3rd century BCE), the Assuan-hymns were inscribed under Ptolemy IV (late
3rd century BCE) and the Hor-Ostrakon was written in 169 BCE as stated in the text

7 Tait, Papyri from Tebtunis, 48-53, no. 14, pl. 4; KOCKELMANN, Praising the Goddess, 31-36;
Quack, Ich bin Isis, 326 n. 27; id., Perspektiven, 73; ID., Einfuhrung, 107. Publication forthcoming
by Quack, Lobpreis.
8 Tait, Papyri from Tebtunis, 48-53, no. 14, pl. 4; Smith, Review of Tait, 201; Kockelmann,
Praising the Goddess, 33 f.
9 BRUNSCH, Zwei demotische Texte; ZAUZICH, Schiilerubung.
10 See e.g. KOCKELMANN, Praising the Goddess, 53.86; Quack, Einfuhrung, 107 f.
11 For further Egyptian sources, see the contribution by S. NAGEL in the present volume
(pp. 207-231).
12 Zabkar, Hymns, 103-114.
13 Particularly BRESC1ANI, Tempio, 66 f. 103—105. STADLER, Isishymnus E.14.
14 Ray, Archive, 46-48; Den Brinker/Muhs/Vleeming, Berichtigungsliste, II 416;
KOCKELMANN, Praising the Goddess, 11-17; QUACK, Apokalyptische Passage, 245 f.
236 Martin Andreas Stadler

itself. Furthermore, a series of Isiac epithets was inscribed in Philae under Ptole­
my VI (first half of the 2nd century BCE) and copied under Augustus in Kalabsha.15
The aforementioned texts all share certain features with the Demotic Vienna Papy­
rus, such as the equation with other goddesses, the name formula in several instanc­
es and an enumeration of places of worship in almost all sources cited. Those lists
are generally less detailed than in the Vienna Papyrus. Yet, the earliest text that, to
my knowledge, presents Isis in various mythological functions as well as towns
where she enjoyed a cult is the version of the Book of the Dead spell 142 as given
in the early 10th century BCE pGreenfield.16 All of the Egyptian parallels are fo­
cused on Egypt and do not provide an analogous section for Isis as being identical
with other non-Egyptian goddesses. It seems as if this is a Hellenistic invention and
innovation. But who was responsible for this? Could it have been an Egyptian or a
Greek author?

The Hymn’s Position within the Tradition of Isiac Hymns:

Ancestors, Relatives and Offspring

Since antiquity, when the most famous Greek sages such as Pythagoras, Solon, Pla­
to and others were said to have learnt from Egyptian priests,17 the influence of
Egyptian wisdom and religion on the Greek philosophy has been at issue. In Demot­
ic studies this discussion centred on the question of Homeric models for the Demot­
ic Petubastis-Inaros-cycle and has re-gained some importance around the turn of the
2nd to the 3rd millennium CE.18 A hitherto unattested Egyptian text that parallels a
Greek one might further ignite such debates. Furthermore, Isis’ Egyptianness during
the Hellenistic era and the Roman Empire has been hotly contested among Classi­
cists and Egyptologists.19 Most Classicists have accepted, without too much hesita­
tion, that the Hellenistic Isis is something new, a Hellenistic deity who by chance
had the same name as the old Egyptian goddess, but otherwise lacked any Egyptian
characteristics. In the published proceedings of the conferences on Isis that have
been held every three to five years since 1997 and which discuss the diffusion of the
cult of Isis outside Egypt, various papers illustrate this assumption very well.20 Few
Egyptologists have participated in these colloquia, and none of those who have pub­
lished in the corresponding volumes specialize in Demotic and/or temple inscrip­
tions of the Ptolemaic-Roman period. Contributions by scholars from Ancient His­
tory, Classical Philology and Classical Archaeology dominate the volumes, and

15 Junker, Preis der Isis.

16 BUDGE, Greenfield Papyrus, pl. CX1V, col. 4 11. 28-col. 5 11. 23. Translation: ALLEN, Book of
the Dead, 118.
17 The sources are collected and discussed by DOrrie, Der hellenistische Rahmen, 427-449;
Erler, Platon, 46-48.
18 Q uack, Homer-Rezeption; ID., Einfiihrung, 66-70.
19 Cf. Dousa, Imagining Isis.
20 See Bricault, De Memphis a Rome; id., Isis en Occident; Bricault/Versluys/Meyboom,
Nile into Tiber.
 New Light on the Universality ofIsis 237

these seem to be unfamiliar with recent developments in Demotic studies concern­

ing Isis.21 Thus, these Isiac studies tend to be rather self-referential, but even among
Egyptologists some follow the Classicists’ view.22
The situation may seem obvious at first sight: An Egyptian goddess is praised as
a universal deity and, coincidently, an Egyptian source for this was lacking, where­
as we know a range of Greek texts concerning this phenomenon. Now - one might
think - the natural order has been restored as an older Egyptian text, the Vienna
Papyrus, testifies of what has hitherto been known only from Greek texts (most of
which have been written and found in Egypt). Egyptologists would welcome such
an idea and would be quite happy to have an Egyptian text that is 100 years older
than the Greek Oxyrhynchus Papyrus since, as mentioned earlier, attempts to identi­
fy such an Egyptian precursor as compelling evidence have been unsuccessful so
far. Yet, despite the earlier age of the Vienna Papyrus compared with the Oxyrhyn­
chus text, the hymns as preserved in the inscription of Isidoros of Narmouthis
should prevent us from acting too quickly because they again predate the Demotic
version by another 100 years.
There are further indications that caution is a wise choice. As we will see, the
papyrus exhibits features that do not provide a simple answer to the question of de­
pendence. To reach a conclusion, I propose to proceed step by step. First of all, the
basic assumption is that in pVienna D. 6297+6329+10101 a traditional Egyptian
Isis-hymn is combined with a more recent hymn. This newer hymn can only be im­
agined in an Egypt that had intense contact over a long period with neighbouring
religious phenomena, as well as with more remote peoples, some of which had con­
quered and occupied Egypt for some time. The presence of theonyms such as
AnahTta, Nanaia and Demeter - unattested in Egypt during earlier epochs - justifies
such a suggestion. The question of whether P.Oxy. XI 1380 is a translation from an
Egyptian composition similar to the one preserved in the Vienna Papyrus remains,
however, because the verso of P.Oxy. XI 1380 contains the so-called Imuthes-
Asklepios-aretalogy (P.Oxy. XI 1381). The introduction to the aretalogy refers ex­
plicitly to the huge difficulties posed by a translation from Egyptian into Greek.23
As the verso is inscribed with a translation from Egyptian into Greek, it is not un­
likely that the recto, the Isis-hymn, was also presented as a translation from an
Egyptian original. It is possible that this postulated presentation may have been lost
along with the introductory section on the beginning of the recto text - but all this is
rather hypothetical and cannot be proven.
Continuing on to the next step, the Vienna Papyrus says: “You are among [the]
Persians - <L>athynen - [is your name]”. P.Oxy. XI 1380 has in I. 104 ev Ilepoaiq
Aareivcv (“among the Persians - Latina”). This posed a severe problem to students
of the text, for usually AnahTta is the best-known Persian goddess. Therefore Clas­

21 Cf. e.g. Quack, Ich bin Isis; id., Ritual.

22 Bommas, Apostel Paulus. A more nuanced view (Isis’ nature predestined her for a mystery
cult which, however, had little in common with Egyptian religion) is expressed by ASSMANN, Py­
thagoras und Lucius.
23 P.Oxy. XI 1381; see GRENFELL/HUNT, Oxyrhynchus Papyri XI, 221-234. Cf. also the biblio­
graphy in Totti-Gmund, Aretalogie.
238 Martin Andreas Stadler

sicists assumed a corruption and conjectured Avavrpv for Aareivev.24 However, Isis
is already AnahTta among the Medes according to the Demotic text, and under the
condition that both texts are related; it is unlikely that the passage in the Oxyrhyn-
chus Papyrus should be emended to AnahTta. In the Greek version the names are
given in the accusative for reasons of syntax. Turning to the Demotic we realize that
<L>cthynrn' (“<L>athynen”) might be written there as well. The last phonetic sign
before the determinative is damaged and could be an n which might reflect the
Greek accusative ending. This would be surprising for Egyptian, which does not
display cases at the surface and would not have the same ending, if there were an
accusative in Egyptian. Thus, the Demotic text may give us a clue that it was trans­
lated from Greek rather than into Greek from Egyptian.
Yet, this still leaves us with “Latina” as an unknown Persian goddess, and we
should take a further step. The reading <L>cthynrn' (“<L>athynen”) is in itself an
emendation of the Demotic based on the “Latina” of the Greek version, as an L is
not written in the Demotic. Furthermore, there is the possibility to read the last
damaged phonetic sign as an ?. Therefore, the transliteration cthyn> should be pon­
dered. Should “Athena” rather than Latina be the principal Persian goddess?
Addressing this, it seems as if 300 years of Hellenism have left their traces in
Persia and that AnahTta’s interpretatio Graeca was Athena.25 Indirectly, Plutarch
points to the similarities of AnahTta and Athena when he reports that Artaxerxes
went to Pasargades to be inaugurated as king by the Persian priests. Plutarch con­
tinues by referring to the temple of AnahTta: ’’Ectti 8s 0sa<; TroXepiKfjq ispov ijv
AOpvav <av> tic; eiKaoeiEV (“Here there is a sanctuary of a warlike goddess whom
one might conjecture to be Athena”).26 More direct evidence comes from the Per-
sepolitan sanctuary of AnahTta, which was restored after the great fire that burnt
down the city. Greek dedicatory inscriptions in this new AnahTta-temple mention
Artemis and Athena.27 And finally, even an Isis-Athena is known.28 In this light a
reading cthynn or cthyn> as “Athena” for the Persian chief goddess seems to be pos­
sible, which would show how thoroughly the Greek deity was established there by
the 1st century CE, whereas AnahTta is reserved for Isis among the Medes four lines
later in pVienna D. 6297+6329+10101. Another interpretation might be that
AnahTta was simply presented as an interpretatio Graeca, much as P.Oxy. XI 1380
1. 30 says that Isis is Athena in the Saite nome, a clear reference to the Egyptian
Neith whom the Greeks saw as Athena. In other words: The litanies which prima
facie seem to be dictionaries of polytheism reflect the actual nomenclature rather
than historically correct information concerning the original and indigenous names.

24 CUMONT, Isis Latina; Bricault, Myrionymi, 14; Torn, Ausgewahlte Texte, 67.
25 Cf. Boyce, AnahTd; HAUSSIG, Gotter und Mythen, 280-284; Herzfeld, Archaeological
History, 44.
26 Plut. Art. 3. Cf., however, Binder’s scepticism (Plutarchs Vita, 117-120) concerning
Plutarch’s identification of AnahTta with Athena.
27 HAUSSIG, Gotter und Mythen, 280-284; HERZFELD, Archaeological History, 44.
28 Ben-Gurion-Universitat VI 1216, 82 (BRICAULT, Myrionymi, 12).
 New Light on the Universality ofIsis 239

The Demotic papyrus might also elucidate how the Persian “Latina” came into be­
ing. Right beneath cthynrf/cthynrn a certain Lty is mentioned. Her identity is not
clear to me at the moment - in an earlier article I assumed “Leto”, but phonetically
it is problematic to take the co to be represented by a Demotic y.29 Be that as it may,
the L of this name is positioned somewhat out of the line, almost between the two
lines. A copyist or translator might have seen the L as pertaining to the cthynrf or
cthynrn1 by aberratio oculi thus creating Latina. However, this implies that pVienna
D. 6297+6329+10101 is a predecessor and belongs into the tradition of P.Oxy.
XI 1380. Yet, there are too many features which distinguish one text from the other.
Therefore, the Vienna text cannot be a direct ancestor of the Oxyrhynchus text. I
would rather propose the model of tradition as shown in the diagram above. In order
to avoid an overly confusing picture, the question of the so-called Greek Isiac are-

29 Stadler, Hymnen, 160-162.

240 Martin Andreas Stadler

talogies and their probable Egyptian roots is excluded here.30 They would - I as­
sume - run more or less parallel to the hymnic tradition.
The diagram on the preceding page attempts to illustrate the complicated interre­
lations of Egyptian and Greek Isis-hymns as I see them. The two hymnic traditions,
the Egyptian and the Greek, form the roots of hymns to Isis in Greek. The Greek, or
rather Hellenistic tradition is termed p. Within this P-tradition an unknown number
of secondary versions must have existed which are represented as P’ 1— P’x. Here, the
idea of Isiac universality might have been developed which in itself is an appropria­
tion of an Egyptian model, the form of the litany. Litanies might be the source of
inspiration to or general structure of the ci-string, the Egyptian tradition. They
sketch out a deity’s cult topography by presenting his or her names, under which he
or she is worshipped, in a series of Egyptian towns.31 This was first extensively ap­
plied to Isis in the pGreenfield version of BD 142 (Greenf.). In the surroundings of
a the seventh Isis-hymn from Philae (Ph VII), a hymn that is attested in Philae and
Kalabsha (Ph/K),32 and the approximately 100 years younger oHor 10 (Hor) are
located. The aforementioned litanies, as well as other Egyptian temple hymns, are
abundantly attested albeit somewhat indirectly stressing Isis’ polyonymity.33 Hypo­
thetical text witnesses adapted this in the Greek p-string by applying the polyonymi­
ty not only to Egypt, but also extending it to the entire ancient world. The hymns, as
preserved in the inscription of Isidoros of Narmouthis (IsN), might be a testimony
of such a P-text. It should be borne in mind that the Isidoros-inscription was on dis­
play in the Fayyum in Egypt. Thus, the universality of Isis was expanded with re­
percussions on Egyptian worshippers who might have adopted this view of Isis and
integrated it into the Egyptian hymnic tradition, yielding the Egyptian y-complex. It
is most likely exemplified by pTebtunis Tait 14 and pCarlsberg 652 vs. (Teb). The
Vienna Papyrus (Vi) belongs to this group as well. Consequently, the equations
with foreign deities (being somehow Hellenized themselves) entered the Egyptian
textual tradition. The (suggested) Greek accusative ending might have crept in due
to copying from one of the Greek texts. The intermediary steps are all questionable,
and their number cannot be determined due to the insufficiency of the available evi­
dence. The same is true of possible contamination at any step, i.e. of copying one
manuscript from one string under comparison with a second papyrus from a differ­
ent tradition. Either directly from a’|- a’x in comparison with a Greek version (P’i-
P’x), or by the medium of one of the hypothetical y-manuscripts, the text on pVien-
na D. 6297+6329+10101 was created. Contaminating the 0-texts, which perhaps
inspired Apuleius (Apul.), with descendants (8i—8X) of that Egyptian version, the
hymn to Isis was probably authored as it survived in P.Oxy. XI 1380 (Ox). Thus,
the Oxyrhynchus version could be a Greek translation from Egyptian. In this pro­

30 Cf. Quack, Ich bin Isis; STADLER, Vorlage. Response to the latter: QUACK, Erzahlen als
Preisen, 306 n. 69, who repeats and asserts rather than contradicts my argument (see STADLER,
Weiser und Wesir, 230 n. 651).
31 STADLER, Funerary Texts.
32 Junker, Preis der Isis.
33 Kockelmann, Praising the Goddess, 53.
 New Light on the Universality of Isis 241

cess of textual transmission the Athena must have been changed to Latina inadvert­
ently; if not, an enigmatic “Latina” was originally meant in the Demotic.

Conclusion

At the moment, I hesitate to label the Vienna Papyrus as the direct predecessor of
the Oxyrhynchus text, on the basis of the Athena/Latina-problem; it is an isolated
indicator for such a relationship, yet a rather important one. Furthermore, the Ox­
yrhynchus list is by far more elaborate and goes into much more detail by specify­
ing Isis’ identity with goddesses in particular towns, whereas the Demotic version
remains on the broader level of peoples. Aware of this, I previously proposed an
indirect relationship between the Demotic and the Greek versions, which may be
strengthened by further research. If my reconstruction of the text’s ancestors, its
sources and its forms of influencing other hymns is correct, the aforementioned ver­
sions have indirectly raised questions of who influenced whom in Hellenistic and
Roman Egypt. These questions must be confronted with an answer that does not
claim general validity, but which is also limited to the area of Isiac hymns. At first
this might sound disappointing, but considering the overwhelming importance of
Isis, this contributes a valuable nuance to our picture of the goddess’ cult. The pa­
pyrus, which I have presented here in more detail for the first time, is further proof
of the great potential of Demotic sources, which have not been comprehensively
explored yet. Any judgement of Hellenistic Isis would be on the wrong track if it
did not consider the relevant Egyptian texts, as well as the specific nature of Isis
within the environment of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt.

Bibliography
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